Academic Economics is a luxury good

Wine competition

2007-05-27T12:38:00.000+08:00

From Wikipedia,

"The most common form of wine competition is one in which awards are given to groups of wines in various winning categories on the basis of the blind tasting of wine. That is, the judges do not know the identity of the wines they are evaluating. The awards are frequently bronze, silver, gold, and double gold medals. However, ribbons of various colors are also sometimes used. It is not uncommon for one-third or more of the wines competing to be awarded medals. Some critical observers compare the results to "grade inflation." For example, in 2005 the International Wine Challenge received over 9,000 entries and handed out 5,628 awards. Thus, over one-half of the entries were "winners" and could advertise themselves as award-winning wines."

It seems WC paper has much wider applications, than just within the ivory tower.

Critical thinking and logic and ECONOMICS

2007-05-20T23:22:00.000+08:00

Some slides from the philosophy course.

The Ideal undergraduate training for Economists

2007-04-06T15:59:00.000+08:00

Come from "Economics Geek ",

First Year, Semester One:
Principles of Microeconomics;
Math Eco 1 (Calculus);
Math Eco 2 (Linear Algebra);
and Index Numbers in Economics

First Year, Semester Two:
Principles of Macroeconomics;
Math Eco 3 (Differential and Difference Equations);
Math Eco 4 (Vector Calculus);
and Econometrics 1 (Introductory Math Stats).

Second Year, Semester One:
Intermediate Microeconomics;
Math Eco 5 (Real Analysis);
Math Eco 6 (Static Optimisation);
and Econometrics 2 (Principles of Econometrics).

Second Year, Semester Two:
Intermediate Macroeconomics;
Math Eco 7 (Dynamic Optimisation);
Econometrics 3 (Intermediate Econometrics);
and Welfare Economics.

Third Year, Semester One:
Advanced Microeconomics;
Math Eco 8 (Probability Theory)
Econometrics 4 (Advanced Econometrics);
and International Economics.

Third Year, Semester Two:
Advanced Macroeconomics;
Econometrics 5 (Applied Econometrics);
History of Economic Thought 1 (Microeconomics);
and Game Theory.

Fourth Year, Semester One:
Graduate Microeconomic Theory 1;
Graduate Macroeconomic Theory 1;
History of Economic Thought 2 (Macroeconomics);
and Economics Research Project 1.

Fourth Year, Semester Two:
Graduate Microeconomic Theory 2;
Graduate Macroeconomic Theory 2;
History of Economic Thought 3 (Econometrics)
and Economics Research Project 2.

And looking back to my courses taken related to economics:

First Year, Semester One:
Introduction to Economics I (Intro Micro)
Basic Mathematics I (Basic Calculus)
Analysis of Econ Data (Basic Math stats)

First year, Semester Two:
Introduction to Economics II (Intro Macro)
Basic Mathematics II (Calculus and some Linear Algebra)

Second year, Semester One:
Microeconomic Theory
Macroeconomic Theory
Econ of Property Rights
Game Theory

Second year, Semester Two:
Introductory Econometrics
International Trade
History of Economic Thought (Mainly on Neo-Institutional Economics)
Mathematical Methods in Economics

Third year, Semester One:
Labour Economics
Industial Organization
Math Econ
Uncertainty and Information
Antitrust

Third year, Semester Two:
Capital Theory
Auction Theory
Econ of current affairs

Not very far from ideal, but it seems I should put more time on the "hard" skills.

Time travel

2007-02-02T11:23:00.000+08:00

Can anyone think of an economic proof of time travel is impossible?

I have got an idea after MT Cheung's class, let see whether it will convince you.

Proof:
Interest rate determines the relative price over time for the same commodity.[1]

If time travel is possible, there will be an arbitrage oppounity if the price of the same good over time is different, which means, if there is interest, people can gain by "buy low sell high".

The above implies, under ideal situation, interest rate = 0 if time travel is possible. We observe that, generally speaking, interest rate is not equal to zero in our world.

So not B ---> not A, time travel is impossible. Q.E.D.[2]

Notes:
[1] You may refer to I.Fisher's "Theory of Interest".
[2] Q.E.D. stands for "Quite Easily Done".

How to rank?

2007-01-08T10:51:00.000+08:00

Doing good with good intention
Doing good with bad intention
Doing bad with good intention
Doing bad with bad intention

Friends, how would you rank it?

According to the economics trainning I received, we should just look at the ends without concerning the unobservable mindset.

In this sense, is economics trainning also pass on some value judgement?

明智

2006-12-11T13:58:00.000+08:00

「自知者明，知人者智」 --- 老子道德經第三十三章

是為明智

解釋:
能瞭解自己的人，是真的明道之人；
能瞭解別人的人，是有智慧的人。

Congratulations on winning the Best Teacher Award!

[Note: The order of quotation is inverted to get a better match.]

Econ 201

2006-11-17T06:33:00.000+08:00

Principles of Microeconomics

Trailer

Commercial

I won't play this kind of game even I have nothing to do, but it seems a lot more interesting than attenting the boring lecture.

Admission Officer reply

2006-11-08T18:54:00.000+08:00

Received sometime ago.

"Dear Cheng,

I hope your fine. Madam my name is Ibrahim okumu, i am a Ugandan interested in pursuing doctoral studies in Economics at HKU with a bias towards macroeconomics and econometrics; my worry however is how i can successfully apply (moreso on how to get to a supervisor) and be admitted.

Attached is copy of my CV.

Regards
Ibrahim"

My reply,

"Dear Ibrahim,

I have read your CV, it looks very nice to me. I think there should be no difficulty for you to get here, but I have a question in my mind, why HKU? You have mentioned that you interested in macroeconomics and econometrics, these two fields are not particularly strong for my school. If you really want to have your PhD in HK, I adivse you apply CUHK, which best suits your field of interest.

And I think you are more experience in finding supervisor than me, as you may know, I am just an undergraduate, not even get a bachelor degree.

Regards,
Cheng"

Did I make my homepage look like an Admission Officer's?

If I really know "how to be successfully apply (moreso on how to get to a supervisor) and be admitted", I should have done it myself first, and enjoy the remaining Bachelor degree with no more worry!

Mean-Variance

2006-10-31T21:51:00.000+08:00

Dead!

Prepared for a whole week, just leave this out.

"Apply a second-order Taylor Series expansion of E[u(W)] around initial wealth, under N-asset case portfolio selection in mean-variance framework"

Can anyone show me?

A Librarian recommendation

2006-10-19T20:15:00.001+08:00

Today, when I am hanging around in library, someone asks me how to find a book (with call number). To be exact, it is how to locate it. She said this is her first time, and keep on saying sorry to have my time. Finally, I point her to the right place.

A moment later, I am stopped by a freshman, who asks me how to use the DVD player. I turn on the power for him, and everything goes fine with him.

Do I look like a Librarian?

Anyway, a good book is found. To put it simply, it emphasizes intuition, and is written for advance undergraduates and postgraduates. LSE Prof. really means something. Highly recommended by me, a pseudo librarian.

Microeconomics by Frank Cowell

A sample chapter is available here.

And one of the best features is, all questions with answer provided. Excellent for self-study.

An hour-long presentation

2006-09-28T20:04:00.000+08:00

MCI Worldcom and Sprint

Terrible!

I think I understand what Vesper feel, when holding tutorial. I entcountered the same situation today. If you can't read chinese, let me summarize his points,

1. not sure the audience understand or not, since no facial expression can be read.

2. unclear explanation.

3. unable to think quickly and response to questions raised.

To be a "preacher" is really not easy, to understand why others don't understand, invent an explanation that suit their way of thinking, and all these should be done in within seconds!

Suddenly, JC appears in my mind, but he leaves without a word. When can I meet him again?

Why that is a trapezium?

2006-09-22T09:09:00.000+08:00

Some interesting thing left un-noted in the previous post, I better put it down when I still have a fresh memory now.

After I finished my illustration, and returned to my seat, the girl (with short jeans skirt) sit next to me, ask me a question about what I have just explained in board. Obviously, she did not want to ask me when I am still in front of the class. (So she prefers to do it privately instead of publicly. Is that implies something?) As you can refer to the post yesterday, I did monopoly model. To draw MR cut MC is easy, so the prof asked me to indicate the consumer surplus, producer surplus and deadweight loss. I have chosen a monotonically upward slopping MC curve, hope you know how the diagram looks like, if not, please refer to the textbook.

The question from her is, "why PS is a trapezium?"

Indeed I did explain that in my diagram, I have cut the DWL into half, and stated clearly the lower part belongs to Producer if there is perfect competition. The immediate thing I did, was not pointing back to the diagram I drew, instead I took up a pencil, and draw her a new graph with U shape MC. Can you guess what she asked then?

At this point, it should be clear that nothing implied, excerpt she is smart. If she really asked me that when I still stand next to the board and with a chalk in hand, do you know what will I do?

Two side of the same "course"

2006-09-21T18:53:00.003+08:00

I live in the 'double world' as what Keynes described in his masterpiece. Law and Economics are the two I refer to, in the Selected topics in Price Theory. The course, although with the code as 'ECON3108', seems to be a law course entirely in the first three lectures. Today, I have the fourth one, my classmate ask me this after leaving the seminar room, "Are we entered a wrong room?"

A sudden, however small, change in environment (in Cheung's terminology, 'Constraint') usually cause discomfort (if there is a behavioural change, that is what comparative static should predict), not even to mention jumping into another world. The 'new' world is familiar to me --- I lived there for more than two years (that implies I left the real world for more than 730 days, although that also includes time spent on traveling between) --- which is the theoretical world in economics.

OK, no more analogy. Do you find the above paragraph difficult to read? That is what I feel when reading the Antitrust Statutes (The Sherman Act, The Clayton Act, The Federal Trade Commission Act). I made up this to let you have a taste of my first three lecture materials.

Enough. Without further ado, here comes the fourth one. We covered Monopoly pricing model, with uniform pricing, first and third degree price discrimination, and Cournot competition in 2 hours. These stuff should be easy to anyone who has taken Intermediate Micro [WC class], I suppose initially. Needless to say, the real situation is over half of the class appear to be never seen this before, they cannot answer most (simple) questions, not even to ask them come out to illustrate.

Illustration with chalk and blackboard in the seminar room is exciting, believe me. I do the part of Monopoly model with uniform pricing, my friend did the first degree P.D., and the rest was done by Dr. Chung. Could you imagine having a chance to speak and draw diagram in the seminar room, and answer questions raised by the audience? That is really wonderful, that is what I think university learning should be, that is the dream comes over and over again before I entered HKU. Now after two years, dream realizes.

Letter to Professor

2006-09-19T20:32:00.000+08:00

The letter is about a small variation of the labour supply model,

"Dear Dr Chan,

I am writing to ask for clarification of an assumption introduced in the last class of Human Resources Economics.

In discussing the effect of the fixed time cost of working on the individual labour supply curve, you made the assumption that leisure is normal. What puzzle me is that the precise meaning of this assumption. I have tried to work out the reasoning in simple math, and discovered that the income elasticity of leisure is positive, as assume, but can never be greater than one, or the outcome is totally reversed. So what I want to ask is the assumption means, “Leisure is normal but not superior”.

I am not sure my calculation is correct, or am I thinking too much, or I have turned into a wrong direction. Anyway, please accept my apology for wasting your time if it turns out to be a silly question. Just to let you have an idea of who I am, still remember the one who answered, “It depends ……… but I don’t know it depends on what”, I am the one being asked about the leisure normal income effect.

Regards,

Cheng Ho Cheung
Becon, Year III "

The reply come as,

"Hi, what you said is correct. I should have stated that if both C and L are normal, then the hours of work will decrease. If the income elasticity of leisure is greater than 1, then hours of work will increase when there is a fixed time cost of working."

My letter is surely not as good as Vic's lengthy and detailed one about MRS and DMU. [You may find his work and some follow-up discussion here.] I choose not to include the working in the email, because the math is so simple, and I want intuition more than rigorous proof. It all start with an identity, T = L + H, then empolying some basic calculus to get the percentage change effect explicitly. The rest is just simple comparison, left hand side vs right hand side.

(Vesper has shown me the graphical solution this afternoon in the canteen, which is a bit confusing to put that here, as there are many curve moving, but the key is to consider also the vertical axis althought that is not the one representing the variable in question. It should be intersting to note that while we are discussing, there are some people talking econ stuff more seriously than we do over several table apart. I doubt if the prof. is receiving money, or he must have an illness that cannot stop teaching.)

I should be happy that I can use what learnt in MME correctly, and yet as a year 3 student in economics major, I can only ask a trivial question to fill in a small hole of the lecture material, should that be a sad thing?

Non-aversion to mental exercises

2006-09-19T02:24:00.000+08:00

Today, I have IO. After class, I met someone who took MME with me last semester. The followings are what we say to kill time waiting the lift get down to ground floor.

"The lecture is so difficult, I would rather do a thousand matix algebra than work out the flow of this." (She is a Stat. Major.)

"Er...... But the model just presented is only an elementary monopoly model, you should have a taste of it in your micro analysis." (She minor econ.)

"You know how much the prof. covered last year, not even half of the topics listed in outline."

"Oops, thank god you have such a nice prof."

To me, it is surely harder to do a thousand matix algebra, but what make me feel ill about is her attitude. I am the type of person who will try whatever means to avoid mechanical stuff. I wonder if anyone would be happy to turn oneself into a computer-like machine. Reasoning, and creativity should be the most beautiful function of our mind. However, I met one think opposite today, no wonder WC put such line under prerequisites in the course outline, as what is used as the title of this post.

Antitrust

2006-09-16T23:59:00.000+08:00

Antitrust is not about believing no one, althought no one worth. It is the law of stopping people to form agreement, which probably benefits the contracting parties, and most importantly, harm the outsiders at the same time. To me, it is just a common way to compete, a strategy with higher chance to win, so to speak in game theory term. I see no different between this and that people try very hard to bulid up human network, is that fair? Why don't compete with each other on our own? Perfect competition? Don't be silly, if I know the prof. well, I need not work that damn hard to prepare for my exam.

This semester I have taken the selected topics in Price Theory, the one being selected this time is Antitrust, in HK it will be called as law of fair competition. Lots of reading is distributed in the first lecture, most are the law stuff, hard to read, and there are some Latins in it.

However, the prof. said, "As a HKU student, you guys should know what this Latins means, luckily, I am from CU."

Anyway, it is fun to have a seminar type class of this, lots of discussion, everyone participate (althought only 6 students enrolled), indeed it is the atmosphere that I think the university learning should look like, before I enter HKU.

The first day without JC and Vesper

2006-09-08T23:31:00.000+08:00

It has been a long time, a long long time haven't updated this blog. The reason isn't particularly special, just lazy, or there is nothing worth to blog.

Today is the first day, the first day in HKU that I can't find any familiar senior in Economics. That means a new starting, yet not such an enjoyable one.

As usual, WC is very nice. He try to explain the course outline in the most clear way, and warn those who take it as a management course --- get the hell out of here! And he emphasize intuition is very important several time. Finally, he make the prediciton that many will leave after the add/drop period, and the tutor is of no use, strictly speaking, no tutor is needed.

CYT, as often, read out the outline in a way that make you felt asleep, combined with his "cool" joke.

The new professor is really serious, to the extent that I feel my determination isn't enough to overcome. Before teaching anything, the first homework is distributed. My immediate response is, "what a good way to drive out the excess people." My checking of the web later refute my conjecture, the second homework is already posted.

New Desktop

2006-05-14T19:03:00.000+08:00

The "home-made" wallpaper is designed for the coming examination, hope it can help focusing my attention.

And it is freely available at here.

Price Theory

2006-03-15T22:19:00.000+08:00

Today experience in UST, make me feel my investment in Price Theory is worth.

See if you can answer this question,

Whether it is a must, for a firm producing more output than other, which earns zero profit, makes a loss, given symmetric cost structure?

After drawing out the diagram, it is easy. But what impress me is the prof.'s attitude towards student question - admitting given wrong answer in class, and immediately suggest another, even though his second answer is also flawed.

JC

2006-03-15T22:11:00.000+08:00

Beacon

It seems he will leave soon, my dissertation can't be under his supervision.

Anyway, let's listen to the radio show on 20/3, see how this rebellious guy show off his talent.

Real masters in Ping Pong

2006-02-20T19:37:00.000+08:00

http://hw-driver-bal.nctu.cc:52833/pub/slime/sharedMail/film/2005-1130-1.wmv

Do you think cheung can win them?

My web

2006-02-16T02:57:00.000+08:00

www.hku.hk/outlaw

You can find my silly work there.

No. 1

2006-02-14T21:08:00.000+08:00

J.R. vs P.S.

2006-02-14T18:06:00.000+08:00

In today "Short run Macro" course, provided by Joe, an interesting debate between two economists is introduced.

One is the last student of Keynes, the other claimed to be a Keynesian.

They are Joan Robinson and Paul Samuelson. Having a little bit knowlegde in history of economics, should suffice to indicate who is who.

The debate is about the price adjustment process, which P.S. rely heavily on dynamic math skill.

J.R. "I don't know math, all I can do is THINK!"

And as usual, the process can be shown by Demand-Supply curves with arrows signalifing the movement.

J.R. "All the change is only your eyeball."

[Remarks: Previously broken links are fixed.]

Price elasticity of supply vs Monopoly

2006-02-09T02:00:00.000+08:00

In today MME lecture, Dr. Tan mentioned the price elasticity of supply is related to antitrust case. Anyone who have studied Price theory should know there is no such thing as supply curve in Monopoly market, so how come there is an elasticity?

Asking her directly after class, she begin the explaination with regarding to Stigler. Her claim is from one of thesis of GJS, which argues when the price elasticity of the "potential" suppliers is high, it is unlikely that industry is a Monopoly.

Vesper quickly reminded me that is a combination of the perfect competitive model and monopoly theory, which is an interesting application of price theory. For this good follow up question, I own him an answer.

Semester II

2006-02-07T23:59:00.000+08:00

ECEN2905
English for professional communication for economics and finance students

ECON0107
History of Economic Thought

ECON0301
Theory of International Trade

ECON0701
Introductory Econometrics

ECON0702
Mathematical Methods in Economics

JMSC0101
Principles of journalism and the news media

It seems that there is a common practice to re-interpret the course name here, as what Dr. Yuen did in Econ0706 Uncertainty and Information. Where he argued the course should be called as Risk and Information, with some basic knowlegde about Knightian or Keynesian uncertainty, you will certainly appreciate his claim.

I follow the tradition, for econometrics, I usually call it as economagic, which indeed is a very appropriate name if I take the course in last semester, which is taught by the HKU Harry Potter --- Dr. James P. Vere.

For the rare course --- History of Economic Thought, the outspoken guy announced in today lecture that actually what he will teach is the History of Economic Fault. An exciting yet expected exposition, because I am rational.

MME is one of the most widely re-interpreted course name, what I heard in the past includes Mathematical Mind in Economics, Mathematics Majors in Economics, Mad Man Economics, etc. However, this semester, the most suitable name should be, Mathematics and Methodology in Economics. Have a look of the first tutorial handout, and then you will understand. It seems there is a subsidiary course under the formal one.

Result

2006-02-07T23:22:00.000+08:00

Finally, it comes out,

Games and Decisions B+
The Economics of Property Rights A-
Microeconomic Theory B+
Macroeconomic Theory A-
Philosophy of the sciences B-

Semester 1 GPA : 3.34

To be honest, it is out of my expectation that I got a B- for the philosophy course, which graded solely by two papers. The two essays at most worth D, by considering only ideas, not even to mention the english. Judge it yourself.

Histoical part --- Aristotle's scientific knowledge
Modern part --- Simplicity - its Status as a Criterion for choosing among Scientific Theories

Outlaw

2005-12-13T17:04:00.000+08:00

Just find something interesting about me,

"An outlaw, a person living the lifestyle of outlawry, meaning literally "outside of the law." In the common law of England, a judgment declaring someone an outlaw was one of the harshest penalties in the legal system. However, romanticised outlaws became stock characters in several fictional settings, particularly in Western movies."

Although it is all my imagination, I think myself really live in an outlawry lifestyle, which is very special indeed. Let me illustrate some points worth mentioning,

"To be declared an outlaw was to suffer a form of civil death. The outlaw was debarred from all civilised society. No one was allowed to give him food, shelter, or any other sort of support —to do so was to commit the crime of couthutlaugh (or aiding and abetting), and to be in danger of the ban oneself."

I love the feeling of being alone, more correctly, enjoyed very much.

"A person who encountered an outlaw was allowed, and indeed encouraged, to kill them —to do so was not murder."

I enjoy competition, especially when the oppoent is excellent and tried what ever means to win me. This make me improve from time to time, the only cost is that I need to be alerted at every second.

"Because the outlaw has defied civil society, that society was quit of any obligations to the outlaw —outlaws had no civil rights, could not sue in any court on any cause of action, though they were themselves personally liable."

No rights, no responsibilties. For so long, I doubt why I need others to grant me right in doing this or that. My life belongs to me, let me decide and face whatever come to me. Moreover, this give me the clearest angle to look at the society - what it is for and how it works.

"In the civil context, outlawry became obsolescent in civil procedure by reforms that no longer required summoned defendants to appear and plead. Still, the possibility of being declared an outlaw for derelictions of civil duty continued to exist in English law until 1879 and in Scots law until the late 1940s."

Nowadays it is no longer possible to be (legally) declared as an outlaw, and that is why I do it myself (illegally).

(Quotes are from wikipedia)

Evidence

2005-11-10T02:15:00.000+08:00

Today, Property right midterm started with,

"1. What kind of empirical evidences do they provided to support their argument that dissipation of rent occurs under common property?"

Tonight, I found the evidence when I was reading newspaper and for those serious, please read the working paper.

Early leave

2005-11-08T21:47:00.000+08:00

Today game theory class,

"The ring-and-out policy was being tested in the class on Nov 8, 2005. When I was going through the answer of the mid-term test, the mobile phone of a student rang. I couldn't identify the student, because I was writing on the board. I turned around to the class and asked the student to identify himself/herself and leave the classroom. The student did not identify himself/herself. During the process, the watch or some other electronic device of another student (or may be the same student) beep, so I asked both of them to identify themselves and leave the classroom. Once again, no students identify themselves. I gave them a final chance to leave within a minute. No students moved and I had to end the class 15 minutes earlier at around 3:35pm. It illustrates how selfish some students can be."

Selfishness is the basic assumption in economics, and today's lecture provided an experiment of that, which belongs to the field of behavioural economics, not game theory.

One possible explanation is, the lecturer not consider game theory as part of economics. But a more plausible one is, he is showing the creditability of his rule, paving a solid foundation to the next round game, at the cost of the well-behaved students.

[Food for thought: Is there externality in the above case?]

Micro Midterm

2005-10-31T23:01:00.000+08:00

See if you can finish it in 50 minutes.

Power of the Nobel Prize

2005-10-18T21:12:00.000+08:00

Today, at the beginning of the game theory lecture,

"Class, since this year the nobel prize of economics is given to two distinguished game theorists, our teaching schedule will be changed as to incorporate their ideas, the rest of our course material will be entirely different from last year. And I have put the link of the 2005 nobel prize advanced information on our course webpage, this is what we will cover next lesson." He announced.

My god, how can an undergraduate student understand this year nobel prize winner's ideas? Moreover, there is no textbook for that, only the notes provided by the Royal Swedish Academy of Science!

It seems that my only academic investment this semester--- buying the game theory textbook (Games of Strategy), is a failure. Oh, I nearly forgot to tell you that, he also said, "Look at the section 4 'Recommended readings" of the pdf file, you can find our texbook by Dixit and Skeath (2004), so you guys really have made a good choice." What else can I say?

Stigler

2005-10-18T17:08:00.000+08:00

Two books by him:

The above one is the theses collection.

This one is full of jokes.

And there is a particular funny chapter in the latter, "How to pass Examinations in Economics", which consists of nine lessons.

Lesson 1: A statement that can be False is False.
Lesson 2: A tax on corporation profits is not a variable cost.
Lesson 3: A statement that can be True is True.
Lesson 4: Know your economy.
Lesson 5: Know your logic.
Lesson 6: Not every entrepreneur is greedy.
Lesson 7: Read and write carefully.
Lesson 8: Not everybody understands Keynesian Economics.
Lesson 9: Nobody knows the suffering that farmers(and students) do.

The details should leave to you, however, please let me tell you one more interesting point. In answering True or False questions, he suggested, T means Theoretically, while F means Fantastic, and we can, strictly speaking should, write (T --- but really F) or (F --- but really T).

A small discovery

2005-10-10T01:12:00.000+08:00

I have found an easy way to remember the index number.

Laspeyres Index of Quantity:

Paasche Index of Quantity:

For the price index, we need a mirror image,

Laspeyres Price Index:

Paasche Price Index:

Hope that can help you to remember the index number, if you do not understand it at all, sorry all the above is not for you, surely the following joke too.

If we only know the prices and goods purchased yesterday, together with today prices, we can only show that we are worse off.

Some words from the famous

2005-10-07T01:48:00.000+08:00

Leonardo da Vinci:

Obstacles cannot crush me. Every obstacle yields to stern resolve. He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.

Mohandas Gandhi:

A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.

Martin Luthur King Jr.:

An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of the imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect of law.

I have found my star, but never think of making (intellectual) history, needless to say, to bear the high cost of freeing others (intellectually).

I discovered the Fisher Curve

2005-10-06T01:45:00.000+08:00

"It is not generally known that the first statistical investigation of the relation between inflation and the unemployment rate was performed not by A.W. Phillips in 1958 but by Irving Fisher in 1926."

I Discovered the Phillips Curve: "A Statistical Relation between Unemployment and Price Changes". Irving Fisher. The Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 81, No. 2, Part 1. (Mar. - Apr., 1973), pp. 496-502.

Abstract
The possible relation between changes in the price level and changes in the volume of employment, much discussed by economists at the present time, has already been debated in the pages of the Review. In the present article Professor Fisher, one of the foremost authorities on monetary problems and for years a protagonist of stabilisation, removes the question from the sphere of controversy to that of exact statistical research. He has found a remarkably high correlation between the rate of price changes and employment, and he describes the methods by which he has achieved this result. The data used refer exclusively to the United States, and further research would be required before the conclusions could be applied directly to other countries. Nevertheless, this objective statistical confirmation of a relation long asserted to exist is a highly important step in advance.

Finalized course selection

2005-09-25T16:29:00.000+08:00

Semester I

Games and decisions

The economics of property rights

Microeconomic theory
Macroeconomic theory
Philosophy of the sciences

I must say something about the last course, since I don't expect to enroll in that initially. My choice in the first place was Basic Mathematics III, which is an extension of the I and II courses I took in last year. I dropped that because of the sick of mechanical calculation. Then I turned to the Mathematical Economics, which is taught by Joseph Wu, an old friend of Cheung, always mention Steven's stuff in class. Due to this special attribute, I should have no reason to reject his course. However, a careful revise of the credits requirement force me to do so. There must be at least 24 credits for inter-faculty courses. Which implies, not only economics courses, other finance, acounting, marketing, and business-realted courses, are not counted. After realising this nearly drive me crazy, luckily, I finally found a place worth staying.

"Incompatible" answer

2005-09-19T22:44:00.000+08:00

"Last lecture, a student asked an interesting question concerning about the satiation effect of the indifferent curve in the perfect substitute and perfect complement case. Is he here now? Please raise up your hand." He then looked around.

I did so, and everyone stared at me.

He approached me and asked quietly, "have you got the answer now?" Without a second of thought, I replied, "no".

He then drew two diagrams, let me reproduce here,

That is his final answer so far, I don't quite agree with him, what do you think?

Satiation

2005-09-13T00:56:00.000+08:00

"What will the Indifference Curve look like if satiation is added into the perfect substitute or perfect complement case?"

During the break of today's Micro theory lecture, I asked.

The lecturer thought for 30 seconds and said,

"Sometimes, in economics, some concepts are incompatible."

I got back to my seat. He was walking slowly around the stage, seemed to be contemplating.

My name

2005-09-10T21:33:00.000+08:00

Byron:

Instead of being an obedient technician solely for the sake of power or money, an intellectual should always try to be a "trouble maker". Challenging dogmas, exposing lies and pointing out injustices, under the cloud of the necessary and unpleasant consequence of being "unpopular", and in some circumstances the threat of imprisonment or death.

That's the hidden reason for me to call myself --- outlaw, I seldom tell others except I feel that he shares a similar view. Nearly all people I met asked why I choose such a bad word to be my name, apparently, they are very far away from being an intellectual. Although I am also one of them, at least I have observed the way, and used an implicit method to tell those intellectual around me, my belief --- aware of the suffering before going to challenge the dogmas.

I must thank byron for the lines quoted above. I myself should have no chance to write in such a clear way to explain my thought.

Old Hong Kong

2005-08-30T13:37:00.000+08:00

In 1946 the photographer Hedda Morrison, acclaimed for her 1930s and 1940s images of China, arrived in Hong Kong. During about six months there she photographed virtually every aspect of local life, which was little changed from decades earlier -- yet destined soon to be transformed.This book presents Morrison's compelling, intimate documentary images of Hong Kong, its people and patterns of life, with narrative essays by Edward Stokes that vividly describe the postwar years. These unrivalled photographs, superbly printed at Harvard University from Hedda Morrison's original negatives, hold up a mirror to a vanished world.

1930 至40年代以拍攝中國景象為世知名的攝影家Hedda Morrison，於1946年居港六個月期間，以鏡頭如實記錄本地風土人情豐富多姿的面貌。本書照片精采紛陳，震懾人心；加上Edward Stokes 翔實生動的說明文字，圖文並茂，讓讀者盡覽香港戰後的人情世態。無與倫比的照片，由哈佛大學以Morrison的原底片精心沖印，為逝去的人與事留下耐人尋味的影蹤。
http://www.hkupress.org/asp/bookinfo.asp?PD_NUM=9622097545

I am attracted by the description, but not the photo. And I do think the chinese version is written better.

P.O.W. Camp

2005-08-26T23:22:00.000+08:00

Quite boring these days, (only me stay at hall), so read:
"The Economic Organisation of a P.O.W. Camp" R.A. Radford. Economica, New series, Vol.12, No.48(Nov., 1945), 189-201.

P.O.W. stands for Prisoner of War. This article disclosed the working of economic instutitions in that Camp. Several topics are discussed, Development of Market, Money, Inflation, Price Control, Public Opinion. Each is provided with anecdotes observed by the writer, most are interesting, let see some of them:

Red cross supply food parcels --- tinned milk, jam, butter, biscuits, bully, chocolate, sugar, etc., and cigarette, for free! Economists may call them endowment or simply, land.
There is production of sevices, although with a limited range.(you know what it implies.)
A notice board is setup for exchange. Just like the primitive shares exchange center,however not centralised, each bungalow has its own board, when a transaction is made, the price is crossed out.
Some people have monopoly power, because they can speak several language.
Cigarette acted as money, and followed Gresham's law.
Paper currency(BMk) existed for a restaurant with food, hot drinks and performance.
Interesting phenomenon of having two money --- Cigarette and BMk. One good with two prices.
Medical officer fixed the price of good in order to avoid malnutrition, initially supported by majority, nevertheless, finally removed. Once again showed the doom destiny of price control.
People usually act against his words. Damn the middleman at the meeting, and trade with them everyday.

While reading, I imagine a nice picture in that camp, it seems they had much more choices, at least in eating. I can hardly find a restaurant nearby, damn the middleman, why don't come here?

(The answer has already given in the first line.)

New Home

2005-08-24T19:10:00.000+08:00

Let see:

BEcon

2005-08-23T11:14:00.000+08:00

A letter received several days ago:

"I am pleased to inform you that your application for program transfer has been successful, and that you be admitted to the BEcon Year II in the first semester of the academic year 2005-2006."

Actually, I planned to be BEcon in Year I, however, I cannot submit the application form before the deadline last year. So a sadly E&F Year I passed with an awful GPA.

I have asked by my friends why I insist on changing major, anyway, I can freely choose any economics courses. My reply is simply, no core (compulsory) finance courses. My grade of the finance course clearly tell me that I am not capable of handling it. However, in a subjective sense, it is better to say I have no interest in that.

"Don't be silly, who cares what courses you have taken or the name of your degree. They just look at your score, or whether you are first-hon." JC shouted. This is what he replied when I asked for his advice. For all those who have warned me, sorry that I buy his idea more.

For those hate econ or question about it

2005-08-16T19:35:00.000+08:00

read this: http://www.ksyss.edu.hk/~kwng/s6_readings/eco_arrow.mht

Whenever people ask me what do I study, I find it hard to tell them the truth. If I just say economics, they would reply, "Which shares do you think will rise?". If I try to explain it is a science about human behaviour, objections come naturally as what suggested in the text (link provded) above.

Hope those people understand what I am doing after reading it.

The article is short and clear, what do you think?

Some good news

2005-08-15T15:42:00.000+08:00

I have given a single room (701) in the coming sem.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yesterday, I met a HKU Econ Phd, Wong Kwan To, in the tea gathering for the Morrisonians. He know Byron! Certainly, Byron know him also (I check that with Byron in icq). To (his nickname) told me something about his day of UG, C.D. Hall and N.S. Cheung are his teachers, Wing Suen is his supervisor. Oh my god, how lucky he was, and it is really a good chance to me. Although I cannot attend all those masters' lecture, at least now I have an indirect way to approach, and even better is, if he can put all of their ideas together, then I can save a lot of effort to combine them. Missed one point, Silberberg and Barzel are his teacher too! To told me that silberberg's book, "The structure of economics : a mathematical analysis", does not cover all of his 'skills'. I am going to read through it and then ask To what is the "hidden" technique.

It seems the coming year is much more interesting than the last, and my dream of entering US postgrad school is become clear.

Human behavior

2005-08-01T00:22:00.000+08:00

J. Viner:

The economist is concerned with human behavior, and with human psychology only in so far as it is necessary for an explanation of human behavior in its economic aspects. In order to learn how men will act in a given situation, or how a change in the situation will modify their behavior, it is surely more practical to observe their behavior than to attempt to discover by introspection or otherwise what they might be supposed to do if actuated by a certain motive operating alone. Both methods are inductive, but the former seems to meet the canons of induction much more satisfactorily than the latter. Even the psychologist as such is beginning to rely less and less upon abstract, speculative propositions, and to explain human psychology by the acts of men under given circumstances rather than by the mental processes behind these acts, which are not subject to inductive examination. The modern trend in psychology is decidedly away from introspection and the attempt to explain behavior by rational motives revealed by introspection. The psychologist looks rather to the systematic observation of behavior as the source of psychological generalizations, and uses the inductive method—experimental only in part—as a means of obtaining his general principles. The part which consciousness plays cannot be so revealed, of course, and here the method of inference from specific observation fails, but the economist as such is concerned only with the external aspects of human psychology, and can well afford to leave the analysis of motives to the speculative psychologist. The bonds which tie political economy to an out-of-date rational hedonistic psychology and its appropriate logical method of investigation are not indissoluble.

A paragraph from "Some Problems of Logical Method in Political Economy", JPE, Vol. 25, No.3, 1917.

Yesterday after the meeting (for discussing Coase's "Nature of Firm"), on the way home, Question ask me why I choose to study economics but not psychology, as I am interested in human behaviour. The answer provided is not satisfactory, and I believe the quotation above is much more better.

p.s. The first half of the article talks extensively about the logical method --- Induction and Deduction, which is one of the many interested topics of my friend, I sent him a copy long ago, don't know whether he has read it, I guess no. If you want a copy in doc form, leave a word.

序

2005-07-29T20:41:00.000+08:00

Freakonomist

2005-07-27T01:18:00.000+08:00

The seminar has just finished, and you cannot imagine my situation. Through out the one-hour something presentation, I can only see some slide highlighted suddenly, some ticks appear. Since I can't dial the number to get the voice, a silent presentation, imagine you are deaf and looking only at the screen for one hour, without watching the presenters face (although their picture is provided, they are smiling).

Damn it!

Some words make me ...

2005-07-26T23:00:00.000+08:00

Byron said:

我是這樣想的：既然進了研究院，自己的一生大概也就獻了給經濟學了，為何不燃燒掉自己每一分的力量？若果沒有這樣熱情，我還是不要讀好了。

Whether can I do that?

Online seminar by Levitt

2005-07-24T19:43:00.000+08:00

You're invited to attend a live online seminar with the authors of Freakonomics!

Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner reveal the theories behind their white-hot national bestseller FREAKONOMICS: Explore the Hidden Side of Everything on

Tuesday, July 26, 2005
9:00AM-10:00AM Pacific Time
10:00AM - 11:00AM Mountain Time
11:00AM - 12:00PM Central Time
12:00PM - 1:00PM Eastern Time.

What a good news! My only worry is the time, I don't know how to convert the time! What is my time?

M 記

2005-07-17T21:11:00.000+08:00

Just come back from the first gathering of Morrisonians, know more about the history of the hall. According to our warden, Morrison Hall is the second earliest hall of HKU, however due to the insufficient funding, it closed down in the 1968. That means I am now having a duty to revive this great hall. And most important emphasis of the tradition is, although being a male hall, Morrisonians proud of having lots of girls going in and out the hall. It seems a bit hard for me to help buliding up this culture.

So far all the news seems good, but what follows are terrible. Morrisonians used to call their hall as M 記. (Oh my god, I don't want to be an McDonaldian.) And that is not the most embarrassing thing, which is the suit we are going to make, having a big M on the chest!

How to get good grade?

2005-07-16T03:16:00.000+08:00

use simple and navie english, as straight as possible
用正楷
show that u understand the material well, but not to put down all things u know.
just use material in notes or things taught in class. forget about what other stuff u know
when they ask "what is profit" don't put down "there is no such thing as profit theory" or "why demand curve is downward sloping" don't put down it is human behavior-----we are not in the age of cheung
try to memorize all things in notes

It is the advice from my friend who has a GPA > 3.7, I think it is rational to follow his approach. Oh, the most important thing missed, it is to fill in the whole answer book!

Morrisonian?

2005-07-12T18:11:00.000+08:00

Dear Morrisonians,

I believe that you have accepted the offer of a hall place in Morrison for the coming academic year (except the 3 of you that are not in HK). Welcome to be the "new" Morrisonians. As was mentioned in the interviews, there are a few things we need to sort out including the Information day in August and the Orientation. All of you will be the core group of Morrison Hall and I also want to discuss with you about the "future" of Morrison and how we should move on.

In the mean time, I would like to meet you on Sunday, 17 July at around 5 pm somewhere in the campus (I will confirm the venue this Friday). Please let me know if you can make it by replying to this e-mail. If you cannot make it, will you be able to help with the Information Day (10-12 August) and/or the Orientation in early September?
I look forward to hearing from you.

Many thanks.
Billy

To me, it seems to be a strange name, Morrisonian, but certainly it is better than being Keynesian.

Good / Bad results released

2005-06-30T18:02:00.000+08:00

Exam result:
Introduction to finance C+
Practical Chinese language C+
Great economists of our time D
Introduction to economics II (Macro) B+
Basic mathematics II B-
Information technology proficiency test P
Mathematics: a cultural heritage A-

Hall Admission result:
Appear on the successful list (Morrison)

Two results release in two days. Yesterday was the exam result, today is the hall admission result. I must say sorry to byron that I left suddenly. The first result implies my road to postgrad. is harder, the second implies my time in the coming year becomes tighter, so should the sumed up effect be negative?

Obiviously, the inter-relation between these two results is neglected, just like the co-variance.(Recently, self-study Freedman's Statatistics.)Due to this, I still see some chance to be back on the positive side.

The ways of using mathematics in Economics

2005-06-27T12:02:00.000+08:00

Use mathematics as a shorthand language, rather than as an engine of inquiry.
Keep to them till you have done.
Translate into english.
Then illustrate by examples that are important in real life.
Burn the mathematics.
If you can't succeed in 4, burn 3, this last I did often.

Alfred Marshall

It is copied from an interesting book I read several weeks ago, "New ideas from dead Economists". The AM way of doing Math can be seen clearly in his "Principle" Appendix, and this special arragement is actually due to his father. When other children play toys and hide them under the beds, AM played with Math and hide all the paper under his bed. That's because his father dislike Math, and think it is useless when comparing to Literature. That is said to be the reason why in his "Principle", AM hide his Math Notes at the "back".